Reinforcing Effort

Technology 1: Engrade (Online grading and communication site)

• Rationale
  • Engrade is an online classroom gradebook that allows teacher to communicate with students and parents. It is a free website where teachers are able to load all of their classes into an account and add grades, assignments, and comments to be checked by students and/or parents. Each student is given an individual access code making their grades privately accessible following their creation of a username and password.
  • This is an outstanding tool in the classroom not only because it makes recording and calculating grades extremely easy but also because you are able to make comments directly to students and parents. Engrade fits Marzano's "reinforcing effort" very well. I currently use engrade to record grades but also as a way to help students make personal connections between effort and achievement. When students perform very well on an assignment or exam it is frequently the case that I attach a comment to recognize their hard work and achievement in order to encourage their success.

• Resources needed by school/Estimated Cost
  • Engrade is a free website that teachers must register for.

• Rationale
  • iRubric is a free site through RCampus that allows teachers to register and create or share rubrics. This site can be very resourceful to teachers as it helps easily create a printable rubric for students. Rubrics can be a great way to measure student effort and success.
  • This piece of technology fits the goal of "reinforcing effort" because it allows you to create a rubric with your own criteria. Often times when creating rubrics I leave evaluation space for two people to respond, the first response comes from students who assess their degree of success in each category and then room for my evaluation. This has worked out great because students are able to make connections between the amount of time and effort they spent on an assignment with the grade they will receive. I have found that most students when assessing themselves have come pretty close to my evaluation.

• Resources needed by school/Estimated Cost
  • iRubric is free resource for teachers upon registration.

• Rationale
  • Weebly is a company that allows anybody to easily create a website for various purposes. It has various features including the ability to upload: maps, photos, contact forms, music, videos etc. Weebly would be an easy way for educators to create a classroom "Hall of Fame."
  • The creation of a website based "Hall of Fame" would be used to demonstrate exceptional student work and effort. Teachers would be able to take a photo of a project or upload the file with the students name on the website in order to provide a "visual representation" of the work completed. Not only will educators be recognizing students for exemplary work which helps students make the connection between effort and achievement, but it also motivates students to produce that type of exceptional work continuously.

• Resources needed by school/Estimated Cost
  • Weebly is a free website design website and costs nothing for the basic registration, which includes the ability to upload multimedia.

Educational Challenge(s)/How One of Technologies Deals with Challenge(s):

• Student Motivation

  • Student motivation is an interesting challenge as it is directly associated with the amount of effort and success students have in the process of learning. Student motivational strategies need to be thoughtful and purposeful in order to produce desired results.
  • Reaching this educational challenge can be met by using technologies like Engrade in order to provide students with quick feedback to students on their accomplishments. Engrade allows students to receive comments directly from the teacher about assignments that have been posted for viewing. This feedback builds student confidence and motivates students to continue producing good work. (NETC, 2005)

• NETC. (2005). Focus on effectiveness: integrating technologies into researched-based strategies. Retrieved on April 14, 2010 from http://www.netc.org/focus/.